Spalding's Official Bicycle Guide (1897)
Contents
- A meet-by-meet narrative recap of the 1896 American racing season from Oakland to Washington, tracking the performances of professional stars such as Cooper, Bald, Gardiner, Sanger and the Butler brothers, with a points-and-finishes summary table and the author's assessment of each leading rider.
- Reproduces an interview in which Tom Cooper disputes the official points-and-percentage system used to rank the season's champion, arguing that his total winnings and head-to-head wins over E. C. Bald should give him supremacy.
- An instructional treatise by English hill climber F. L. Wale on the technique of climbing on a bicycle, stressing balance, weight over the pedals and ankle action, drawn from eight years' experience in hill contests.
- Argues, in the wake of a year of fatal accidents caused by the absence of brakes, that a good brake is the first virtue to look for in a bicycle — the better and freer-running the machine, the more it needs a controlling power on a descent — and sets out what makes a brake thoroughly effective.
- Reflects on an open coasting match organised by a Chicago daily paper, run on stock machines under rules governing the weight of rider and machine, and uses it and a similar earlier race to examine air resistance, weight in the rims and riding position against the writer's own high-wheel coasting experience.
- A veteran English cyclist's advice on preparing for and conducting a cycle tour, covering training up, adjusting a new mount to its owner, choice of dress and kit, daily mileage and meal routine.
- An essay by F. J. Titus on long-distance and paced riding that explains the air resistance, chain and machine resistance and horsepower involved at racing speeds, and gives methods for training and pacing toward record attempts such as the one-hour ride.
- Distinguishes the two objects of training — producing perfect general health, and developing special powers in individual organs — then gives a distinguished physician's numbered rules for a healthy life covering the hour of rising, the cold bath and rub-down, dumb-bell or Indian-club exercise, diet and food quantities.
- Advises choosing a bicycle suited to the rider's weight, height, strength and requirements, warning against a low frame with a long seat-post projection for tall riders or too long a reach for those of medium stature, and goes on to the seven oiling points and the care of chain and bearings.
- Explains that the law of the road governs the passage of travellers on public roads to prevent collisions and facilitate travel, and quotes the Michigan statute regulating how persons meeting on a bridge or road with carriages, wagons or carts must pass one another as a fair representative of average road law.
- Practical maintenance tips: cleaning bearings by forcing paraffin in with a squirt rather than dripping it from an oil can, the case for benzoline over paraffin and the daylight-only precaution it demands, and keeping benzoline off the tires and any patches or solutioned joints.
- Thumbnail sketches of the leading riders, furnished by the Palmer Tire Company, covering A. C. McDonell, J. F. Starbuck, Ralph Samberg, Jay Eaton, W. E. Becker, Tom and Nat Butler, Earl Peabody, Charlie Murphy, O. L. Stevens, Tom Cooper, the Coburns, C. R. Coulter, A. C. Mertens, Fred Loughead and Harley Davidson.
- Tables of track records as accepted by the L. A. W. in December 1896, listing professional and amateur best times by distance under various conditions including flying and standing starts, paced and unpaced, competition, and tandem.
- A compilation of road records accepted by the Century Road Club of America, including national and state records by distance, tandem records, best individual mileage and century totals for the year, century course records, city-to-city records and American hour records.
- A table of the season's record-breaking performances set out by distance, giving the times, riders and occasions on which each mark was lowered during 1896.
- The hour-by-hour record of the 1896 six-day safety-bicycle race at Madison Square Garden, tabulating for each hour the leading rider and his mileage, from Berlo's opening 21 miles through the long Van Emburg, Hosmer, Waller and Schock stretches.